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(Reuters) – Eleven people believed to be members of a militant group of ethnic Uighurs have been killed in Kyrgyzstan after illegally crossing into the former Soviet republic from China, Kyrgyz border guards said on Friday.

Kyrgyzstan, a mainly Muslim nation of 5.5 million which lies on a drug trafficking route out of Afghanistan, remains volatile after popular uprisings that have deposed two presidents since 2005 and after violent ethnic clashes in its south in 2010.

But its remote, ragged border with Uyghuristan – home to the ethnic Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking mainly Muslim people – has been calm.

“According to their appearance, (those killed) were Uighurs, while things found on them showed that they belonged to an organization of Uighur separatists,” Raimberdi Duishenbiyev, acting head of Kyrgyz border guards, told a news conference.

After crossing the border in a mountainous area of northeast Kyrgyzstan on Thursday, the group ran into a local hunter who killed two of them before himself being killed, he added.

The attackers seized the hunter’s gun but were later blocked by border guards from a nearby frontier post. A unit of special-task forces flown to the area by helicopter killed the remaining nine men after they refused to surrender.

The hunter’s gun appeared to be the only firearm held by the group, who lightly wounded a border guard and shouted back in Uighur during the skirmish.

“Allah is greatest!” they chanted before dying, Duishenbiyev said. The guards found a Koran, black masks, knives and topographic maps printed in China at the scene.

Kyrgyz border guards informed their Chinese counterparts about the incident but the Chinese said they had detected no cases of illegal crossing of the border, Duishenbiyev said.

“One of our versions is that this was an attempt to seize weapons from local herders and hunters and commit acts of “terror” here and then return to their native country,” said Gulmira Borubayeva, spokeswoman for the border guards.

Kyrgyzstan, together with its Central Asian neighbors Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation led by China and Russia, which sees militant Islamists as a major threat to regional security.

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Adding to Muslim miseries in the restive region, twelve Uighur Muslims have been killed last Friday.

BEIJING- Imposing further restrictions on the prosecuted Uighur Muslims, China has accused a leading Uighur intellectual of inciting “separatism”, a few hours after reportedly killing 12 Uighurs in far western China district of Uyghuristan.

“Ilham Tohti organized a group with the disguise of his identity, colluded with leaders of overseas East Turkistan separatist forces, and sent followers overseas to engage in separatist activities,” said a statement by Urumqi Bureau of State Security. Xinhua reported on Sunday, January 26.

Tohti, 44, a Beijing-based prominent Uighur economics professor, has been advocating the rights of the embattled Uighur minority in Uyghuristan.

Earlier this month, the economics professor at the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing was taken by almost 30 policemen during a raid on his home.

Hours before his detention, Tohti wrote in a post on his mobile social media account: “The Uighur people have become outsiders in the development of their own homeland and survival.

“It is here that the people’s anger begins to grow. Uighur people need an avenue to express their aspirations and protect their rights.”

According to Saturday’s charges, Tohti may face a long-term prison over supporting independence in the far west region of Uyghuristan.

Tohti has “formed a separatist group” and “severely damaged the national security and social stability,” police authorities in Uyghuristan said.

He also faces charges of exploiting his position as a professor to manipulate students, a charge dened vehemently by his wife.

“Do they really think the university would allow him to say such things in class? He’s just an ordinary teacher,” Tohti’s wife, Guzailai Nu’er, told Reuters.

“Why are they saying these things? And all this stuff about East Turkestan elements.”

Uighur Muslims are a Turkish-speaking minority of eight million in the northwestern Uyghuristan region.

Uyghuristan, which activists call East Turkestan, has been autonomous since 1955 but continues to be the subject of massive security crackdowns by Chinese authorities.

Rights groups accuse Chinese authorities of religious repression against Uighur Muslims in Uyghuristan in the name of counter terrorism.

Raiding Protests

Adding to Muslim miseries in the restive region, twelve Uighur Muslims have been killed last Friday.

According to news reports, the clashes erupted after security forces raided a protest by Uighurs against selling pigs’ entire carcasses in Uyghuristan markets.

“The Chinese vendors used to sell pork by jin (pound), but now they are hanging up the entire carcasses,” Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the Munich-based World Uighur Congress, told Al-Jazeera on Sunday, January 26.

According to Raxit, police fired at the protesters, hitting the fuel tank of a car and causing a massive explosion.

A different version of the story was reported by Beijing saying that police have shot dead six Uighur Muslims during attacks in the restive Uyghuristan, along with six more killed by explosives they owned.

“During the process of tackling a terrorist case in Xinhe county, they were attacked by thugs who were throwing explosive devices,” Xinhua official news agency said.

Refuting police allegations, Raxit said: “It is not possible for the Uighurs to have weapons, given the tight controls by the authorities.”

Since 2001, China has conducted a sweeping security crackdown in Uyghuristan, further repressing Uighur culture, religious tradition and language.

Uyghuristan has been the scene of numerous incidents of unrest in recent years, with the most notable in July 2009 which left nearly 200 people dead.

Chinese authorities have convicted about 200 people, mostly Uighurs, over the riots and sentenced 26 of them to death.

Beijing views the vast region of Uyghuristan as an invaluable asset because of its crucial strategic location near Central Asia and its large oil and gas reserves.

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Six die in explosions and another six shot dead by police in Uyghuristan, home to ethnic minority Uighurs

A security officer scans a pedestrian with a detector on a street in Urumqi, Uyghuristan, late last year after violent attacks. Photograph: Rooney Chen/Reuters

Six people have died in explosions and another six have been shot dead by police in fresh violence in Uyghuristan, home to the ethnic minority Uighurs, state media reported.

Assailants threw explosives at police in Xinhe county in the Aksu prefecture on Friday, triggering a clash in which police killed six and captured five suspects, according to the Tianshan news outlet, which is run by the regional Communist party.

Another six people died in blasts, the news outlet said, without providing details.

The official Xinhua news agency reported that the Uighur town of Xinhe was shaken by three blasts that hit a hair salon, a produce market and a vehicle that exploded after it was surrounded by police. The case is under investigation.

Uyghuristan is home to low-intensity insurgency by native Turkish Muslim Uighurs against what they see as discrimination and religious suppression by China’s majority Han people. The government has responded with a crackdown on what it calls terrorism incited by separatists who are influenced by radical Islam.

The Tianshan report called Friday’s violence an act of terrorism.

Last year, clashes between authorities and members of the minority group left scores dead, including 40 police officers.

The violence included an unprecedented attack on Tiananmen Gate in Beijing that killed three Uighur assailants and two tourists last year.

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BISHKEK (Reuters) – Eleven people believed to be members of a militant group of ethnic Uighurs have been killed in Kyrgyzstan after illegally crossing into the former Soviet republic from China, Kyrgyz border guards said on Friday.

Kyrgyzstan, a mainly Muslim nation of 5.5 million which lies on a drug trafficking route out of Afghanistan, remains volatile after popular uprisings that have deposed two presidents since 2005 and after violent ethnic clashes in its south in 2010.

But its remote, ragged border with Uyghuristan – home to the ethnic Uighurs, a mainly Muslim people who speak a Turkic language – has been calm.

“According to their appearance, (those killed) were Uighurs, while things found on them showed that they belonged to an organisation of Uighur separatists,” Raimberdi Duishenbiyev, acting head of Kyrgyz border guards, told a news conference.

After crossing the border in a mountainous area of northeast Kyrgyzstan on Thursday, the group ran into a local hunter who killed two of them before himself being killed, he added.

The attackers seized the hunter’s gun but were later blocked by border guards from a nearby frontier post. A unit of special-task forces flown to the area by helicopter killed the remaining nine men after they refused to surrender.

The gun appeared to be the only firearm held by the group, who lightly wounded a border guard and shouted back in Uighur during the skirmish.

The guards found a Koran, black masks, knives and topographic maps printed in China at the scene.

Kyrgyz border guards informed their Chinese counterparts about the incident but the Chinese said they had detected no cases of illegal crossing of the border, Duishenbiyev said.

“One of our versions is that this was an attempt to seize weapons from local herders and hunters and commit acts of terror here and then return to their native country,” said Gulmira Borubayeva, spokeswoman for the border guards.

Kyrgyzstan, together with its Central Asian neighbours Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation led by China and Russia, which sees militant Islamists as a major threat to regional security.

At least 91 people, including several police, have been killed in violence in Uyghuristan since April, according to state media reports.

The China government said three more people died in explosions on Friday evening, in Aksu in southwestern Uyghuristan.

Two blasts struck a market and a beauty salon, killing one and injuring two, while two others died when they detonated the car they were in when surrounded by security forces, the China government said on its news website (www.ts.cn).

Police have detained three suspects and are investigating the incident, it added.